[1] While on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that showed the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell and control the cell's synthesis of proteins.

In his autobiography, Khorana wrote this summary: "Although poor, my father was dedicated to educating his children and we were practically the only literate family in the village inhabited by about 100 people.

[6][14] His family moved to Delhi from Multan as refugees during the partition of India and Khorana was never to visit his place of birth after that.

[6] He returned to England on a fellowship to work with George Wallace Kenner and Alexander R. Todd on peptides and nucleotides.

[17] His work in British Columbia was on "nucleic acids and synthesis of many important biomolecules" according to the American Chemical Society.

[19] While at Wisconsin, "he helped decipher the mechanisms by which RNA codes for the synthesis of proteins" and "began to work on synthesizing functional genes".

Har Gobind Khorana's role is stated as follows: he "made important contributions to this field by building different RNA chains with the help of enzymes.

[28] A summary of his work was provided by a former colleague at the University of Wisconsin: "Khorana was an early practitioner, and perhaps a founding father, of the field of chemical biology.

He brought the power of chemical synthesis to bear on deciphering the genetic code, relying on different combinations of trinucleotides.

[36][37] The "Khorana Program" by Government of India's Department of Biotechnology, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin–India Science and Technology Exchange Program (WINStep Forward/WSF) and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum is a scholarship instituted in his name, since 2007 it has offered Indian students research opportunities at certain US universities.

[38] The mission of the Khorana Program is to build a seamless community of scientists, industrialists, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and India.

The program is focused on three objectives:[39] Providing graduate and undergraduate students with a transformative research experience, engaging partners in rural development and food security, and facilitating public-private partnerships between the U.S. and India.

WINStep Forward also administers the nationally competitive S. N. Bose Programs for Indian and American students, respectively, to promote both fundamental and applied research not only in biotechnology but broadly across all STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, including medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, wildlife and climate change.

[7] Julia Elizabeth later wrote about her father's work as a professor: "Even while doing all this research, he was always really interested in education, in students and young people.